Lastly, envy is “a gadding passion, it walketh the street and does not keep home.”  It were better to say that it “talketh.”  There is nothing like language to relieve one’s feelings; it is quieting and soothing, and envy has strong feelings.  Hence, evil insinuations, detraction, slander, etc.  Justice becomes an empty word and the seamless robe of charity is torn to shreds.  As an agent of destruction envy easily holds the palm, for it commands the two strong passions of pride and anger, and they do its bidding.

People scarcely ever acknowledge themselves envious.  It is such a base, unreasonable and unnatural vice.  If we cannot rejoice with the neighbor, why be pained at his felicity?  And what an insanity it is to imagine that in this wide world one cannot be happy without prejudicing the happiness of another!  What a severe shock it would be to the discontented, the morosely sour, the cynic, and other human owls, to be told that they are victims of this green-eyed monster.  They would confess to calumny, and hatred; to envy, never!

Envy can only exist where there is abundant pride.  It is a form of pride, a shape which it frequently assumes, because under this disguise it can penetrate everywhere without being as much as noticed.  And it is so seldom detected that wherever it gains entrance it can hope to remain indefinitely.

Jealousy and envy are often confounded; yet they differ in that the latter looks on what is another’s, while the former concerns itself with what is in one’s own possession.  I envy what is not mine; I am jealous of what is my own.  Jealousy has a saddening influence upon us, by reason of a fear, more or less well grounded, that what we have will be taken from us.  We foresee an injustice and resent it.

Kept within the limits of sane reason, jealousy is not wrong, for it is founded on the right we have to what is ours.  It is in our nature to cling to what belongs to us, to regret being deprived of it, and to guard ourselves against injustice.

But when this fear is without cause, visionary, unreasonable, jealousy partakes of the nature and malice of envy.  It is even more malignant a passion, and leads to greater disorders and crimes, for while envy is based on nothing at all, there is here a true foundation in the right of possession, and a motive in right to repel injustice.

CHAPTER XVI.  SLOTH.

Not the least, if the last, of capital sins is sloth, and it is very properly placed; for who ever saw the sluggard or victim of this passion anywhere but after all others, last!

Sloth, of course, is a horror of difficulty, an aversion for labor, pain and effort, which must be traced to a great love of one’s comfort and ease.  Either the lazy fellow does nothing at all—­and this is sloth; or he abstains from doing what he should do while otherwise busily occupied—­and this too, is sloth; or he does it poorly, negligently, half-heartedly—­and this again is sloth.  Nature imposes upon us the law of labor.  He who shirks in whole or in part is slothful.